Comfort
by Gurkblomma
Summary: They are in Love, Jasper and Alice. They are fated to be. Somehow, they simply belong. A one-shot. AU AH


_Summary: They are in Love, Jasper and Alice. They are fated to be. Somehow, they simply belong. A one-shot. AU AH

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**Comfort.**

She comes home and it's late, almost seven, and instead of happily greeting him she sits in a chair at the table in their kitchen and that's when he knows it's bad. He's come to know almost every twist and turn of her emotions and gently, quite gently, he places his palms upon her sagging shoulders. Her head leans back against his chest and he leans down down down, because he will always be storeys taller than her, to give her a backward-bended kiss.

"Is positive encouragement preferred or should I wallow in misery with you for a couple of minutes?"

She thinks in silence before she answers.

"Wallowing in misery, please."

Her voice sounds small and without further ado his hands leave her shoulders and he moves to a drawer, finding a spoon, and then to the fridge for the ice-cream. Having found that, he makes sure to bring along two cold beers back to the table because no matter how icky it might sound, Alice sure loves beer with her ice-cream. He has a sudden idea of making a real beer-float and thinks he'll present it later. It is one she'll truly like. He dumps the stuff at the table, not bothering trying to move her to the couch or the bed or even the armchair that she likes so much. Instead he sits on the opposite of her because their kitchen is really tiny and so is she, but he isn't and realistically there's no chance in the universe he'll fit next to her. Instead he places his feet tightly against hers because that's easy and he opens the ice-cream and the beer. It's strawberry, her favourite, and even though he doesn't really like ice-cream - strange, he knows, it was among the first things she told him and he still remembers it fondly - he takes the first scoop before handing the spoon to her. He knows she hates to be the one to take the first scoop because it "ruins the perfection" or something equally stupid but that's okay because he loves her and if she wants to he'll eat strawberry ice-cream for a long, long time; always taking the first scoop. She knows it too, and that's one of the many reasons as to why she loves him. He loves her.

"You want to talk about it?"

He watches her as she eats the ice-cream, only rarely handing the spoon over to him, something of which he is glad, and knows he has to ask. She probably won't want to say anything but sometimes she does and he wants nothing more than for her to be happy. Of course, that's not entirely true because he wouldn't mind season tickets to the Eagles – that is where they met you know, at a football game and he knows he'll never see them in quite the same way again – and while that miracle worker was at it, he'd like for ice-cream to taste like whiskey so it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass and maybe that same person could remove the wind. Not the actual wind, because Jasper has always liked sailing, but maybe the feeling of it? It's annoying and just plain not nice and it always indirectly messes with Alice's mood seeing as it always – directly – messes with her hair.

"It's just so much."

She's silent for a long time and his hand meets hers at the middle of the table before they speak again.

"Too much?"

"Too much."

Not much else needs to be said, because he knows what's bothering her better than anyone with the exception of perhaps Edward, because they are best friends, best friends in the entire world, and he simply holds her hand for a while.

In the end he turns on the telly and then he watches it with his arm tightly curled around her and with her neatly tucked against his chest and their legs entwined together. A random rerun of Star Trek is on and Alice is watching it, somewhat fascinated even though she has already seen it at least twice seeing as she and Edward were true Tekkies when younger, still are as a matter of fact, once a Trekkie always a Trekkie, and even though Jasper has been mercifully spared from this episode in particular he has gotten the gist of it. If he has to hear "Beam me up, Scotty" once more, a nuclear disaster will happen in his head but today it feels as if though the cooling water is extra chilly. Everything for Alice, even watching a crappily made sci-fi show, even though he'd have preferred anything - Grey's Anatomy would actually have been his first choice, though he would never admit it to anyone other than their mutual friend Emmett; the two of them have a rare understanding concerning the matter - and as if hearing what he thought, Alice says:

"Stop knocking on Captain Kirk, Jazz."

He rolls his eyes but tries to tug her a little closer, as if it's possible, and he can feel that she almost smiles. He likes an almost smile, almost as much as a real smile and it makes him smile. That makes her turn around on the tiny thing they call a couch and suddenly she smiles and all is right in the world. He kisses her. It's a short kiss, and afterwards he spends some time looking into her eyes and then he spends some time caressing some rather, hrm, _intimate_, parts of her body and then she tells him what exactly has been troubling her. It is nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary, just a job which is paying well but also the very same job which is the most horrible thing Alice has ever done. Well, almost, he thoughtfully adds in his mind, and his thoughts briefly rest on the amnesia and the ridge he caused in her more than wealthy family as well as the time she was brutally informed she was not to be inheriting anything from the grandmother she loved, but only briefly, because those are things in the past, more or less, and this isn't the time for them. The time for those matters is also the past and no longer is it brought up every day, no longer is it a true concern for either of them. They have a family now. His arm is draped around her and his hand displayed possessively and lovingly against her stomach and she breathes softly as they lie there in silence. They're often in silence and it makes the most of the world uncomfortable and that tends to make Jasper laugh out loud, only in silence while staring into Alice´s eyes. She has an uncanny knack of being able to read what's written in there, one no one else has ever possessed. He's glad she's the one to do so, because what if someone like Rosalie could read his mind? He would have to run away to Monaco or Myanmar to escape the teasing which would ensue. Thinking about Myanmar reminds him of his geography class and he thinks he'll have a surprise quiz on all the countries in the world tomorrow, just because. They'll all hate him for it but he thinks it's important to know the world that surrounds you. He thinks that no one ever knows where Tadzhikistan or Ghana are located and everyone always mix up Sweden and Switzerland, and those aren't even remotely similar, and it's his job to teach the kids otherwise. Alice snorts and he knows that she knows what he's thinking about. He's always thinking about what he refers to as "his" kids when he doesn't think about her and she thinks it's cute, it's adorable. He simply cares so much about them all, even that annoying kid who throws paper planes at the back of his head even though she easily could be the best in class and she loves how he cares about that girl.

"Quit."

Her gaze rises and she manages to stumble an incredulous "_What?"_ before regaining her wits.

"Have you gone absolutely mad, Jasper? I need this job, _we_ need this job. I can't just quit."

"Sure you can," he tells her and for once she truly does not understand the man she one day intends to marry. "Look," he says, sitting up on the couch with her, close to her, always next to her, "you hate it."

Before she has time to deny it he continues.

"You hate it. I know you, Alice, and I can see even during those days when you try to pretend that you love it, that it's killing you. It's _killing_ _you_. You can't do this anymore."

"I have to. No, listen, Jasper, I have to. I can't stop working, it's not who I am."  
"Of course it isn't, but I'm not suggesting you stop working permanently. I mean you quit this job and find another one."

He's looking at her and he doesn't understand because she really can't do this, it's impossible to quit her job because she needs to have a job. Isn't he listening to what he's saying? Hasn't he read the paper, heard the talks, anything? He's a teacher for crying out loud, he's probably talked about it over and over and she know for a fact that he has because there has been cuts at his school and it has him worried for his kids and his fellow teachers but not really for himself, not yet.

"In this economy? Jazz, are you crazy? Where would I find a new job?"

"I don't care. Alice, I don't care."

He takes her hand tightly.

"I don't care. I need you to be happy and you're not happy where you are now. You're not happy."

It's true. He knows her so well and it's true. It really is true and somewhere she knows that it doesn't really matter if she takes his advice or not because that's not what matters; what matters is that he will always be there and she knows that he will. He will. She smiles.

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AN: Sorry about any grammatical or spelling mistakes. See, while writing this I was distracted by a blue, rather hairy monkey and as you most certainly know, blue monkeys have a tendency of promoting errors.  
Also, not much of this is mine. If anyone would happen to want to know what is specifically, you'll have to let me know :)


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